ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Deadline: October 15, 2019

Editors - Dr Joshua Gulam (Liverpool Hope University), Dr Sarah Feinstein (University of Leeds), and Dr Fraser Elliott (University of Salford)

We are seeking chapter proposals for an edited collection on The Fast and the Furious films.

With its ninth instalment set to arrive in cinemas this summer, and two more films slated for release by 2021, The Fast and the Furious is one of the most popular and prolific movie franchises of the twenty-first century. Indeed, the eight films in the series to date have earned a combined total of $5.1 billion at the box office, placing it ninth in the list of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time. However, despite its immense commercial success, little has been written about The Fast and the Furious from an academic perspective (exceptions include Beltrán 2005, 2013). This lack of scholarly attention is surprising given just how representative the series is of recent cinematic trends. Few franchises better capture the excesses of the contemporary action genre than The Fast and the Furious, for example, with its outrageous set pieces, growing cast of global megastars, and increasing reliance on overseas markets.

When Universal released the first film in the series in 2001 - a mid-budget crime/action movie featuring a relatively unknown cast of actors - few could have predicted just how big the brand would become, to the point where The Fast and the Furious now has its own theme park ride, live stage show, and animated TV programme. Often dismissed as 'dumb' or 'mindless' entertainment by critics, this collection will argue that The Fast and the Furious warrants serious attention for more than just its longevity; and that close scrutiny of the series provides a valuable platform for exploring key forces and currents within the contemporary film industry: from franchise culture and global box office trends, to crossover stardom and debates around on- and off-screen diversity.

This collection would be the first book to offer an in-depth critical analysis of The Fast and the Furious, bringing together a range of scholars to explore not only the style and themes of the franchise, but also its broader cultural impact and industry legacy. As such, we envision that the book would serve as a valuable introduction for film scholars, students, and fans alike.

The book will be interdisciplinary in scope and we are open to chapters from a variety of theoretical or methodological approaches. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• The evolution of the franchise, including changes in style, themes, and personnel across the nine films
• The role and importance of racial, national, class, and gender identity within the films
• Stardom and performance in the franchise (e.g., chapters on Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Paul Walker, and others)
• Fandom and reception (of individual films in the series, the franchise as a whole, or particular members of the cast and crew)
• The Fast and the Furious as action cinema (e.g., car stunts, fight sequences, the use of CGI, and crossover with other genres such as the heist and spy films)
• The Fast and the Furious as business and brand, including analysis of its budgeting, marketing, and distribution in North America and overseas
• Spinoffs and adaptations (e.g., Hobbs & Shaw (2019), the Universal Studios theme park ride, Fast & Furious Live, the Netflix TV show, and associated video games)

Bloomsbury have expressed an interest in the collection, and, once the abstracts are collected, a formal proposal will be submitted to the publisher in November 2019.

Please send 300-word abstracts and a short biography, or direct any enquiries, to furiousbook@gmail.com by 15th October 2019. Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than 30th October 2019. Chapters of 6,000 words will be due by 30th July 2020.

Late Autumn School

November 21-23, 2019

Deadline: September 1, 2019

The interdisciplinary DFG Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized World” is organizing an international and interdisciplinary Late Autumn School on “Fragile Trust? Perspectives and Challenges in a Digitized World” in Münster from 21st to 23rd November 2019.

The topic of trust is relevant to different scientific fields, such as communication science, psychology, economics, information systems, sports sciences as well as further related fields. Therefore, we invite applications from PhD and Master Students as well as early Post-docs from all research disciplines dealing with the topic of trust and digitalization.

The deadline for applications is 1st September 2019. More information: http://go.wwu.de/xkshb <https://t.co/ANGrIqJjmS> 

Edited collection

Deadline: August 21, 2019

Few slots open up for contributions to an edited collection on geographically isolated and peripheral music scenes. I am particularly interested in bringing in diverse perspectives beyond the UK/ North America and Australia/ NZ dialogues I currently have, and am particularly keen to provide this opportunity to female academics.

Please see below, and if you are interested please send your abstract to cballico@gmail.com by Wednesday August 21, 2019. Full chapters will be due October 31st, 2019.

Despite advancements in technology facilitating an ease with which geographical distance can be overcome, coupled with a shift away from a reliance on core creative centres for a range of creative and business services, peripheral and geographically isolated contemporary music scenes continue to face a range of challenges which impact upon the ways in which they connect with new audiences and industry beyond their home locale. This ranges from needing to make higher investments of time and money, to having to overcome attitudinal and cultural barriers in order to be viewed as worthy of prominent attention. More broadly, geographic isolation also impacts upon the ways in which culture can flow into these scenes, particularly in the live music setting. At the same time, however, this distance can also result in a range of benefits to these scenes in relation to the ways in which they are structured and how they function locally. This includes cultivating a recognition of the need to support one another, a high degree of expertise and skills concentrated on a small number of workers and a tight network of spaces, as well as the development of a strong work ethic to make the most of opportunities when they arise.

With a particular focus on the below themes, proposals based on place-specific music scene and industry research are now being invited from scholars around the world:

• How do these scenes construct themselves in relation to larger, 'core' scenes?
• What role do social networks and Communities of Practice play in the functioning of these scenes?
• How do temporal and financial barriers impact being able to connect with audiences and industry beyond musicians’ home locale?
• What role does migration and mobility play in ongoing career development?
• How has social media broken down barriers to larger centres?
• What role have governments played in overcoming the isolation faced by musicians and industry?
• How do industry workers navigate their careers in these centres?

Proposals for chapters should consist of a title and abstract (of no more than 250 words), bio (of no more than 100 words), affiliation and email address and be sent to cballico@gmail.com by Wednesday August 21, 2019.

Full chapters will be due October 31st 2019 and be 6- 7,000 words in length.

Please note that only abstracts that closely fit the theme will be considered.

Editors: Kalbaska, N., Sádaba, T., Cominelli, F., Cantoni, L.

FACTUM 19 Fashion Communication Conference, Ascona, Switzerland, July 21-26, 2019

This book represents a major milestone in the endeavour to understand how communication is impacting on the fashion industry and on societal fashion-related practices and values in the digital age. It presents the proceedings of FACTUM 19, the first in a series of fashion communication conferences that highlights important theoretical and empirical work in the field. Beyond documenting the latest scientific insights, the book is intended to foster the sharing of methodological approaches, expand the dialogue between communications’ studies and fashion-related disciplines, help establish an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars, and offer encouragement and fresh ideas to junior researchers. It is of high value to academics and students in the fields of fashion communication, fashion marketing, visual studies in fashion, digital transformation of the fashion industry, and the cultural heritage dimension of fashion. In addition, it is a key resource for professionals seeking sound research on fashion communication and marketing.

Buy here.

November 17-18, 2019

Montreal, Canada

Deadline: August 30, 2019

Bilingual Conference (French/English)

Active fan communities have long been engaging with the object(s) of their fandom. Sports teams, popular movies, television franchises, videogames, comic books, toys and many other cultural phenomena have inspired generations of collectors and enthusiasts, who make, buy, sell and trade in different ways objects and contents featuring their favourite characters, personae, and iconography. From these communities also emerge fans of genres or franchises that hone their skills and use the tools they have available to go past what is offered on the market. They propose their vision to whomever knows of their work or stumbles upon their creation. Therefore, fanart, fanfiction, mods, Youtube videos and Instagram posts are where many of these cultures situate themselves. This includes the toy makers, fanzine creators, the DIY game and tech communities, the chiptune composers and many others that cast themselves beyond the role of fans to become artists. That said, in each case, a form of self-distribution of content occurs that often defines their marginality.

In the field of games, more precisely of videogames, it is not uncommon to come across that phenomenon since, historically, videogames were created following tinkering practices conducted in margins of official activities (Bertie the Brain et Nimrod, 1951; OXO, 1952; Tennis for Two, 1958; Spacewar!, 1962). In this way, many games that ensued (Computer Space, 1971; Pong, 1972; Zork, 1977; Ultima, 1981) were invented by enthusiastic fans of this new media (Crowther, 1976; Adams 1979; Williams, 1982; Fulp 2003). Role playing games were also born from the appropriation of the popular Kriegspiels (war simulation games) by its players (Barker, 1940; Wesely, 1969; Arneson, Gygax et Perren, 1971; Stafford, 1974). Still today, videogame and role-playing game industries wouldn’t be as they are without the activity of their fans in margins of more official communities.

These activities by collectors, creators and tinkerers continue to grow in popularity, particularly since the arrival of the Internet where fans were able to gather, discuss and share their productions more easily. They even organise certain events (Comic Con, DCon, Maker Faire, Otakuhon, etc.) in order to celebrate their sense of belonging to these groups, in parallel to commercial productions. Some researchers have reported on this participative culture (Fiske, 1992; Jenkins, 2006; Postigo, 2007) and an entire field was also created around fan studies (Booth, 2010; Harris and Alexandre, 1998). However, in the majority of cases, those studies discuss the dimensions of these communities and engage in discourse about them, rather than creating the framework for dialoguing with them, keeping in mind the historic perspective of their practices.

As such, the co-chairs of the 5th annual game history symposium, happening during and in collaboration with two gaming conventions (MEGA and MIGS) in the Old Port of Montreal, invite members of collecting and creating communities to participate with scholars in two days of conversation and events. These activities will be centered on the personal and oral histories of fandom and hobbyist designers, their preoccupations, practices, and political economies. We are not only interested in the manifestations and history of these scenes, but also in how fandom themselves participate in the creation and distribution of historical discourse about the objects of their affection.

We aim to have proposals on a wide variety of subjects regarding the margins of gaming communities. For example, the following topics could inspire some of your proposals, without being an exhaustive list:

• Conventions, swap meets and social events;
• Collecting cultures: toys, games, videogames;
• Display and interpretive techniques through “everyday” curation;
• Social media as curatorial display: YouTubers, the “shelfie”, etc.;
• Preservation and restorations;
• User-generated content such as gaming, fanzines, filming, audio and artwork composition;
• Hobbyist and independent game designs;
• Crowdfunded games;
• Mods, modders;
• Etc.

Our vision of this year’s symposium is one where scholars will engage in discussions with members of local and international communities through panels, short presentations and round tables, but also through expositions built and shared by this event’s participants. In this spirit, we would like to extend this call for paper and invite members of those communities to present their collections and creations, either with pictures, videos or a stand that would be installed in a gallery specifically set-up for this event.

Conference features

• In partnership and during the Montreal Expo Gaming Arcade (MEGA) and the Montreal International Gaming Summit (MIGS)
• Keynote speakers: Mark J.P. Wolf (other names to be confirmed)
• Exhibits of fan creations during the symposium
• Social events and gatherings in the evening
• Publication of selected papers in a peer reviewed journal (Kinephanos)
• Strategically located in the famous Old Port of Montreal

Proposals

• 500 words plus references
• Please send your anonymized proposals to: gamehistorysymposium@gmail.com
• Deadline for the reception of proposals: August 30th, 2019
• Notification of acceptance: September 30th, 2019
• Proposals will be blindly evaluated by the organizers with the support of the scientific committee.

This conference is a joint venture between the Faculté de communication (UQAM), Faculté des Arts et des Sciences (Université de Montréal), Homo Ludens (UQAM), LUDOV (Videogames Observation and Documentation University Lab, Université de Montréal), and TAG (Technoculture, Arts and Games, Concordia University).

Special Issue of Fashion, Style & Popular Culture

Deadline: September 1, 2020

More here.

Guest Editor: Lori Hall-Araujo, Stephens College

Marginalized people led empowerment movements resulting in significant cultural transformations in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States and beyond. Among the fights for equality and calls for structural systemic change emerged a sexual revolution that found its way into the mainstream. In 1972, the topic of cinematic pornography entered public discourse when the feature-length hardcore heterosexual pornographic film Deep Throat (Damiano, 1972) debuted in Times Square.

For the first time in American cinema, sexual acts appeared on the big screen in legitimate theatres and broad swaths of the moviegoing public – including women and celebrities – boasted about having seen the film. So launched the 1970s era of ‘porno chic’ filmmaking and the trend for watching narrative hardcore films in theaters.

By the 1980s, home videos and eventually on-demand and streaming services made pornography more accessible and simultaneously a more private pursuit. Coinciding with this shift was the phenomenon of women in popular culture expressing their sexual empowerment through self-objectification. Fashion scholar Annette Lynch (Lynch 2012: 52) traces the origins of women and girls’ porn-inspired millennium styles to 1980s performers such as Madonna who used self-objectification to gain attention and power. Lynch notes the continued practice of female pop stars to market sexiness and inspire what she calls ‘porn chic’.

This special issue engages the topic of porn chic and addresses pornography’s historical and contemporary relationship to fashion. Porn Chic, Erotic Style and Fashion encourages consideration of erotic style broadly defined with an aim to build understanding of its cultural implications. Contributions are accepted from any discipline and methodological approach.

Potential topics might include but are not limited to:

• fashion trends in subcultural sexual communities
• production aesthetics, music styles, body types,
• fashion and costume tropes in pornography
• porn, fashion and cosmetic surgery/body modifications
• the public and private in porn and fashion
• queer fashion and style subversions of heteronormative porn
• heteronormative women’s sexiness: empowering or charade of authentic power?
• porn and fashion as capitalist productions
• porn and fashion’s relationship to race and fetishes
• lesbian porn for straight men and lesbian chic in fashion
• gay porn’s impact on mainstream men’s fashions
• porn’s influence on fashion photography
• BDSM style and mainstream fashion
• social media, free porn and body image among boys and young men
• incel ideologies, homoeroticism and changing notions of the ideal masculine physique
• Instagram, influencers and the demise of Playboy
• porn film style and fashion case studies.

Deadline for Submission is 1 September 2020. Publication 2021. For questions regarding submission topics please email guest editor Lori Hall-Araujo, Stephens College at lhallaraujo@stephens.edu

For questions regarding journal submission guidelines and standards please email or contact the Principle Editor Dr. Joseph H. Hancock, II at joseph.hancockii@gmail.com

FSPC takes submission on a rolling basis with reviews commencing immediately for acceptance to all guest issues. We do not make publication decisions on the submission deadline date. All manuscripts should expect review and turnaround within 60 days.

The school of Creative Technologies and Digital Media

The school of Creative Technologies and Digital Media is seeking Associate Lecturers in Modelling and/or Visual Effects and or CGI

You should have knowledge of and skills in using some or all of the following software: Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Unreal, Houdini, NUKE and Python.

Pay and terms and conditions are comparable with HE in London, include payment for consultation hours and London weighting. Pay and terms will also be as generous and flexible as possible within the payment formula. Teaching will take place at undergraduate level.

If you have relevant qualifications and teaching and industry experience in any of the above broad areas please send a CV and covering note to Dr Martin Murray at m.murray@londonmet.ac.uk and Manfredo Meraviglia at m.meraviglia@londonmet.ac.uk

MeCCSA 2020

January 8-10 2020

Brighton, UK

Deadline (EXTENDED): August 31, 2019

We invite you to submit abstracts, panel proposals and practice-based contributions for the next Annual MeCCSA Conference, to be held from 8-10 January 2020 at the University of Brighton, UK. The theme of the MeCCSA 2020 conference is *Media Interactions and Environments.

Interactions with media are increasingly pervasive, woven into the textures and cultural politics of everyday lives. And when the spaces of our homes, shops, schools, offices and cities are so intensively mediatised, media becomes our environment, brought to life through our mundane, personal, professional, creative, commercial and ideological interactions. But what are the social, political and material implications of these media and cultural experiences and encounters?

Whose voices and perspectives are included or excluded, and how is power and agency reconfigured, realigned or reproduced in this complex media andscape? The theme Media Interactions and Environments is designed to address this critical moment in contemporary media culture, and appeal to a broad range of media, communication and cultural studies interests and approaches.

This conference approaches the theme of media interactions and environments in an expansive sense, to include, amongst others, media texts, technologies, practices, audiences, institutions and experiences.

Media interactions might be digital, cultural, political, emotional and imaginative. Environments could be spatial, political, representational, urban, local, physical, virtual and ecological. This conference theme will also enable the MeCCSA community to question how we should live responsibly and ethically in a politically and ecologically changing world, through an exploration of the central role of media cultures and creative practices in addressing social, political and climate-based challenges.

We invite proposals for scholarly papers, themed panels, posters, film screenings and other practice-based contributions. Proposals might engage with the various social, political, economic, artistic, individual, collective, institutional, representational and technological dimensions of media interactions and environments.

Potential topics could include, but are not limited to:

• Media, communication and inequality: exploring race, gender, sexuality, class and (dis)ability
• Datafication, agency and power
• Ecologies of media industries
• Social movements, activism and civic engagement
• Transformative learning environments and pedagogy
• Participatory media and collective engagement
• Popular culture, media and representations of the environment

• Media archaeology, sustainability and archives
• Digital cultures and immersive technologies, practices, audiences and experiences
• Communicating and envisioning futures
• Critical and creative responses to the anthropocene
• Visual cultures, representations and experiences

We welcome contributions across the full range of interests represented by MeCCSA and its networks, including, but not limited to:

• Race, ethnicity and postcolonial studies
• Representation, identity, ideology
• Film and television studies and practice
• Radio studies and practice
• Cultural and media policy
• Social movements and activism
• Climate change, sustainability and environment
• Digital culture and games studies
• Gender and sexuality studies
• Disability studies within media studies
• Media pedagogy
• BAME experiences of media and culture industries
• Children, young people and media
• Diasporic and ethnic minority media
• Political communication
• Methodological approaches
• Media practice research and teaching
• Community media

Submitting a proposal

Individual abstracts should be up to 250 words, and include a 200 word biog. Panel proposals should include a short description and rationale (200 words) together with abstracts for each of the 3-4 papers, and the name and contact details of the panel proposer. The panel proposer should coordinate the submissions for that panel as a single proposal.

Practice-based work

We actively support the presentation of practice-as-research and have a flexible approach to practice papers and presentations. This may include opportunities to present papers and screenings in the same sessions or as part of a separate screening strand. We also welcome shorter papers in association with short screenings. We also have dedicated presentation spaces to display practice artefacts including screenings, posters and computer-based work. For displaying practice work, please include specific technical data (e.g. duration, format) and a URL pointing to any support material when submitting your abstract. We expect delegates who are showing screenings to be present at the conference.

Please note that all proposals (abstracts and practice-based work) will be peer reviewed. PGRs are welcome to submit.

Submission deadline: 31 August 2019

Submit proposals to: meccsa2020@brighton.ac.uk

Website: http://www.meccsabrighton2020.co.uk

Twitter: @MeCCSA2020

Democratic Communiqué, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to investigating mass media, information, and telecommunication phenomena and issues from critical political economy and policy studies perspectives, invites original, scholarly articles for publication in its Winter 2020 issue (Vol. 29, No.1).

The Communiqué publishes articles exploring any of a wide range of topics, including alternative/community/public media, the internationalization of capital and information flows, media and imperialism, telecommunication industry ownership and consolidation, information society, information technology and surveillance, feminist political economy, environmental political economy, media’s relatedness to social class, labor or social movements, and analyses of cultural artifacts or practices which encompass ideational and material concerns.

While these topics encompass a vast swath of academic inquiry and scholarship, they are united in their critical examination of media and communication as they relate to political economy, individual and societal involvement in these economic systems, and the policies that shape them.

The journal is indexed by Scopus, EBSCO, Google Scholar and the Directory of Open Access Journals, and publishes in both the Notes and Bibliography and Author-Date citation systems presented by TheChicago Manual of Style (15th ed.). Manuscripts should be double-spaced throughout with a detachable title page containing the full contact information of the author(s).

Submissions undergo double-blind peer review, and should not exceed 8,000 words. Please email article submissions to the Communiqué’s editor, Dr. Jeffrey Layne Blevins (Head, Department of Journalism at the University of Cincinnati) at Jeffrey.Blevins@UC.edu.

Revista Lusófona de Estudos Culturais/ Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 7, nº 1

Deadline: September 15, 2019

Editors: Pedro Andrade (Communication and Society Research Centre, University of Minho) & Mário Caeiro (Superior School of Arts and Design of Caldas da Rainha, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria).

Public art is understood as a hybrid and intercultural art style that, in the context of urban or rural public spaces and times, represents and presents objects or projects, contents or forms, structures or conjunctures, or any other theme or problem, social or individual. Material public art includes monuments, statues, installations, graffiti, stencils, stickers, etc. Immaterial public art exhibits events, performances and content on websites and social networks. Thus, the practice and understanding of public art cannot be separated from its social dimensions: its contexts (public sphere, global and local cultures, cyberspace and cybertime); the respective practices (leisure, citizenship, tourism activities and actions, among others), and the corresponding target public (citizen, tourist, immigrant, etc.)

In other words, how do we communicate public art for different publics, within the city and in its public space? Inside the urban fabric of contemporaneity, everything is on the move: capital, labor, people, ideas, things, social inequalities, to name but a few of these rhythms and societal territories. In particular, within the network society, information and knowledge redefine these structures and conjunctures, by updating their own courses. Therefore, the communication of information and knowledge of public art in the city cannot but be mobile. In this context, diverse mobile cultures emerge, defined as a set of procedures, norms, beliefs, habits and practices that deal with increasingly portable information and knowledge, for example through the use of mobile phones. One of the expressions of mobile cultures is public art, whose works frequently reconstruct those innovative communication courses. And one of the processes that most contributes to the development of public art is cultural tourism. Tourist activities have gradually become a global and local phenomenon, somewhat opposite to the generalized process of immigration from the peripheral countries towards the central ones.

Thus, this issue of Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies accepts contributions to a deeper debate and knowledge of such themes, through a reflection essentially in the following three major areas, which now hybridize with each other:

• Public art production: innovation for the public communication of urban culture and arts
• Creation of cultural and art works within the urban public space; material public art (monuments, statues, installations, graffiti, stencils, stickers, etc.); immaterial public art (events, performances, content on websites and social networks); hybrid cultures and intercultural / transcultural communication in the city; history and socio-cultural memory of artistic projects in the city, by pioneering authors and actors of classical media or new media.
• Mediation of public art: valorization of urban heritage and promotion of cultural tourism through urban art
• Regulation of public art by central and local state and administrative institutions; local development strategies through public arts; growth of participatory cultural investments linked to the ecology of regions and to the restructuring of urban areas; sustainability of cultural and artistic enterprises promoting public art.; emergence of industries, service mediators (tourist agencies), and creative commerces in the cultural and leisure sector, linked to public art; inclusive employability in the public arts sector and human capital in the local economy; memory institutions and urban artistic archive: museums, art galleries, cultural enterprises, local associations, groups of friends, collectors, etc.; urban public arts, cultural tourism and digital culture.
• Dissemination of public art: urban media, social networks and mobile devices
• Dissemination of cultural heritage through public art; territorial promotion for the quality of life via the urban arts; implementation of public art in Unesco creative cities and smart cities; international affirmation of urban arts localities and non-places as a tourist and counter-tourist destination; central socio-cultural actors in public art networks: artists, curators, collectors, public (citizens, tourists, immigrants, etc.); mobilities of lifestyles and leisure associated with public art: use of mobile telephones in urban telemobilities, mobile companionship, slow tourism, etc.; Public Art in the City 2.0 (through urban, social and digital networks) and in City 3.0 (social-semantic networks, mobile devices, Internet of Things).

KEY DATES

Submission deadline: September 15, 2019.

Notification of acceptance decisions: November 31, 2019.

Deadline for sending the full version and translated: January 31, 2020.

Journal publication date: June 2020.

The Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies is a peer-reviewed journal that uses a double blind review process. After submission, each paper will be distributed to two reviewers, previously invited to evaluate it, in terms of its academic quality, originality and relevance to the objectives and scope of the theme chosen for the journal’s current issue (www.rlec.pt).

Articles can be submitted in English or Portuguese. After the peer review process, the authors of the selected articles should ensure translation of the respective article, and the editors shall have the final decision on publication of the article.

Originals must be submitted via the journal’s website (www.rlec.pt). If you are accessing the Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies for the first time, you must register in order to submit your article (indications to register here). The guidelines for authors can be consulted here.

For further information, please contact: rlec@ics.uminho.pt